Want more glute strength, better hip extension, and serious posterior chain power? Hip thrusts build glute strength, enhance hip extension, and activate the posterior chain, making them a go-to for both performance and aesthetics. This powerhouse movement targets more than just the glutes; it also activates your hamstrings, quads, core, and lower back. Proper hip thrust form is crucial for achieving athletic gains and preventing injuries. In this guide, we break down how to do them right, which muscles they really work, and how to avoid the most common mistakes.
What Muscles Do Hip Thrusts Work?
The primary muscles targeted are the glutes, but this exercise also activates the hamstrings, quadriceps, adductors, abdominals, and back muscles, strengthening them and helping improve overall body function while preventing injuries. Let’s take a closer look at the primary muscles worked during hip thrusts:
Glutes
Doing glute exercises at home helps to extend the hip joint, stabilize the pelvis, and improve walking, running, jumping, posture, and balance. The glutes are broken into three muscles:
Gluteus Maximus
The gluteus maximus is the largest and most superficial of the glutes, starting from the upper hip and lower spine, and inserting at the back of the thigh. It does most of the heavy lifting during strong hip extension, driving the hips upward and locking them in at the top of the movement, making hip thrusts an excellent exercise for strengthening the glutes. It also helps add stability to your hips by helping with outward thigh rotation, assisting with thigh abduction, and stabilizing the sacroiliac joint.
Gluteus Medius
The gluteus medius is located beneath the gluteus maximus. It originates from the outer surface of the hip bone and inserts on the femur. This smaller, fan-shaped muscle plays a key role in hip abduction and stabilizing the pelvis, essential for walking, running, and squats. It keeps your pelvis stable and aligned when you drive your hips upward, especially when lifting weights or using a glute machine. It also helps with medial and lateral thigh rotation, supports your core, and improves posture.
Gluteus Minimus
The gluteus minimus originates from the lower part of your hip bones and attaches to the front of the femur, deep to the gluteus medius. Its primary role is to aid in hip abduction and stabilization of the pelvis and medial thigh rotation when the hip is flexed. It also ensures pelvis and core stability, precision, and balance, especially when using weights or machines.
Hamstrings
The hamstrings play a crucial role in hip extension. They provide stability during movement, which is essential for preventing injury and enhancing lower body strength and performance. Here are the three primary muscles in the hamstrings.
Biceps Femoris
The biceps femoris is located on the outer thigh and originates from the pelvis and femur. It plays a key role in hip extension, knee flexion, hamstring strength, and lateral rotation of the knee when it’s flexed.
During hip thrusts and other glute exercises, it helps drive the hips upward, working hard alongside the glutes to maximize thrust strength, efficiency, and overall performance while enhancing posterior chain strength.
Semitendinosus
The semitendinosus is located between the semimembranosus and the biceps femoris, where it assists with hip extension, knee flexion, and internal rotation of the lower leg. During thrusts, it works with the glutes to drive the hips upward, ensuring the pelvis remains stable. It also helps improve posterior chain strength and enhances your ability to handle heavy weights.
Semimembranosus
The semimembranous is the medial hamstring at the back of the thigh. It assists with hip extension, helps stabilize the knee joint, and enables internal rotation of the lower leg.
Quadriceps
The quadriceps are the largest muscles in your legs, with four distinct heads. They support the upward thrust and help stabilize the knee joint, preventing strain and enhancing lower body strength and stability. Let’s look at these four main muscles.
Rectus Femoris
This unique muscle spans both the hip and knee joints, providing dual functionality and playing a crucial role in hip flexion and knee extension. It stabilizes the hip crease and ensures proper function while moving. The rectus femoris helps you handle external weights and indirectly helps promote the growth of your glutes, improving lower-body strength and mobility.
Vastus Lateralis
The vastus lateralis is the largest quadriceps muscle located on the outside side of the thigh, where it plays a crucial role in squats and knee extensions. It helps stabilize your knees, especially when lifting weights, and ensures the glutes can fully engage, helping drive your hips with maximum power. However, proper foot positioning is vital so that the feet can effectively support the hips and knees.
Vastus Medialis
The vastus medialis is located on the inside of the thigh and plays an essential role in knee extension and stabilization, ensuring good form, especially when using heavy weights. This allows your glutes and hip extensors to drive your hips upward while reducing the risk of knee injury and boosting overall performance.
Vastus Intermedius
Finally, the vastus intermedius is found deep within the thigh between the rectus femoris and the vastus lateralis. It assists with knee extension, helps stabilize the legs, and ensures proper position, allowing the glutes and hip extensors to fully engage and drive the hips upward.
Adductors
The adductors play a lesser but still important role in hip thrusts. They’re located on the inner thigh where they help stabilize your hips, maintain balance, and maximize thrust power.
Adductor Longus
The adductor longus is located on the inside of the thigh, where it assists with hip flexion and adduction.
Adductor Brevis
The adductor brevis is located deep to the adductor longus, where it primarily assists with adduction.
Adductor Magnus
The adductor magnus is the largest adductor muscle, and it helps with hip adduction, extension, and rotation.
Abdominals
The abdominals also play a lesser but still critical role in thrusts. The largest is the rectus abdominis (your six-pack), which runs vertically, flexing the torso when you curl up and lift your legs. They provide stability and core strength during thrusts, helping maintain good form and assisting in handling resistance.
Back Muscles
The muscles in your back that run from the base of your skull to your lower back are also essential to ensure your upper body is aligned and stabilized. During hip thrusts, the erector spinae stabilizes your spine and keeps it neutral, helping you handle resistance and heavy loads while preventing injury.
How to Do Hip Thrusts Correctly
Hip thrusts can be performed with traditional barbells or equipment like the Speediance Gym Monster 2. Proper form ensures safe execution, maximizes glute activation, and supports long-term muscle growth. Here’s how to perform hip thrusts correctly to ensure you get the most from your workout.
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Position Yourself on The Floor
Lie on the floor with your legs bent and feet flat. Alternatively, you can set your back against an elevated surface (like a bench), but either way, your knees should be bent and your feet should be flat on the floor.
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Place Feet Shoulder-Width Apart
Now, ensure that your feet are shoulder-width apart and your knees are at 90-degree angles when your hips are lifted. If you use a bench, ensure it’s positioned just below your shoulder blades, allowing you to rest your elbows on it.
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Drive Through Your Heels
Tuck your chin slightly to keep your neck aligned, tighten your core, and push through your heels to lift your hips. Focus on moving as one strong unit with hips, glutes, and core all working together.
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Squeeze Your Glutes
Squeeze your glutes at the top of your thrust to ensure maximum contraction. Hold it for a second or two before releasing.
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Gradually Descend
Now, gradually lower your hips to the ground, maintaining control and tension in your glutes and core.
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Repeat
Repeat for as many reps as you’d like. You can also add barbell weights for maximum strengthening.
6 Common Hip Thrust Mistakes To Avoid
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Neglecting core engagement can lead to instability and increase the risk of lower back injury.
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Pushing through your toes instead of using a heel drive shifts the focus from the glutes to the quads. If you find yourself doing this, lift your toes slightly off the ground.
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Overarching your lower back at the top of the movement can cause lumbar spine injuries and reduce the effectiveness of the exercise.
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Improper foot placement, too close or too far from your body, means you won’t get that critical 90-degree angle and could cause knee strain.
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Using too much weight too soon increases the risk of injury and won’t target the glutes effectively.
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Not squeezing the glutes at the top will limit muscle activation and growth.
Avoiding these mistakes improves technique, reduces injury risk, and amplifies posterior chain development.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Are the Benefits of Hip Thrusts?
Hip thrusts build strength and support the growth of the glutes, which are critical for movements like running, jumping, and changing directions. They also help stabilize your core, pelvis, and lower body, helping prevent knee and lower back injuries while giving you an attractive, lifted, and rounded derrière.
Do Hip Thrusts Slim the Waist?
Hip thrusts don’t directly help slim the waist since they target the glutes, hamstrings, and core. However, they do help provide a more defined waistline by strengthening the muscles and improving posture.
Do Hip Thrusts Make Your Glutes Bigger?
Absolutely! Hip thrusts hit the gluteus maximus hard, making them one of the best exercises for encouraging glute growth and strength, especially when combined with weights.
Hip Thrusts Build Strength, Improve Form, and Power Performance
Whether you're training for strength, power, or aesthetics, hip thrusts deliver. They don’t just fire up your glutes; they also work your hamstrings, quads, adductors, core, and lower back, making them a complete posterior chain workout. To get the most out of your thrusts, focus on form, engage your core, and avoid common pitfalls like poor foot placement or overloading too soon, and you’ll quickly see (and feel) the difference. Are you ready to take it to the next level? Check out the Speediance Gym Monster 2, a smart home gym that makes progressive strength training easier than ever.
